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Rural Accommodation

There is something to be said for walking into a village and looking for a room, but without a command of basic Hungarian it is not always easy to find one. With the exception of the shores of Lake Balaton, where a zimmer frei (vacancies) notice screams at you from every gate, Hungarian villagers are slow to advertise their spare rooms. If you feel confident enough speaking some Hungarian the village pub is a good place to ask, where the locals will try to help.

As a precaution start at one of Budapest’s branches of Tourinform (see Appendix 4) whose Englishspeaking staff will provide accommodation brochures and advice on where to stay. The branch at Király utca specialises in rural accommodation. Regional offices maintain their own databases of local accommodation and might be able to provide a brochure or offprint. The types of accommodation available in the hills are described below, starting with the cheapest.

Wild Camping

Although this is a good way of getting deep into the hills and probably the only way of seeing the more secretive of Hungary’s mammals and birds, wild camping is not permitted in many walking areas. Nature Guards regularly patrol national park land and they have the power to fine and evict offenders. Outside national parks it is also illegal for foreigners to camp in forested areas without permission, and for safety reasons it is inadvisable to wild camp during the hunting season (October–January).